Why Swallows will beat Chiefs

The battle lines have been drawn, the swords are sharpened, all is ready for South Africa’s mother of all battles, the Soweto Derby II, which sees Kaizer Chiefs host Moroka Swallows in an Absa Premiership match at FNB Stadium on Saturday evening.

Statistics point to a Chiefs win as they have had the upper hand against the Dube Birds, who they have met 54 times in league matches since 1985. Amakhosi boasts 29 victories compared to the Birds’ 11 wins.

Adding the spark to this game is the fact that the two teams are tied on 29 points from 16 matches and are only separated by goal difference, which sees the Glamour Boys on third position and the Dube Birds, who survived relegation last season by a feather, fourth on the log table.

Adding to a predicted Chiefs win is the club’s remarkable home record so far this season, with five wins, one draw and just one loss from seven matches. All round, at home against Swallows, Chiefs have recorded 15 wins, seven draws and five losses from 27 matches.

Football is a beautiful game and statistics are better left in the archives as they don’t win matches. I hereby put my head on the block and say that, despite all this, Swallows will prevail over Chiefs.

Clyde, why are you saying this?

Well, in their last game Chiefs played to a 1-1 draw against Jomo Cosmos while Swallows scored three goals in the 3-2 win over Santos. It’s goals that win matches and Swallows have proved they can find the back of the net with no need of a GPS. The same cannot be said about the Chiefs strikers, who seem to be suffering from a new disease called “Torresitis”, failure to find the back of the net.

Adding to that, the Birds have a solid away record with three wins, two draws and two losses from seven matches. Chiefs are under pressure to win the league and starting the second half with a draw against a rock bottom team surely dented their confidence going into the big game.

Watch out Chiefs, Birds can fly at night

• On 8 February 2012 at 2:58pm, Clyde Tlou tweeted, “Ghana shall be sent packing today, Gyan will miss a penalty.” This was about three hours before Ghana played Zambia and in the game Asamoah Gyan’s penalty was saved by Kennedy Mweene. Ghana were knocked out by the Chipolopolo, who eventually became African champions. Follow @clydegoal on Twitter.

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